In spite of a slowdown in absolute percentage points over the previous quarters, the latest data of the Statistics Office of the European Community confirm the positive trend of EU gross domestic product. According to Eurostat, in fact, the GDP data for the second quarter of 2007 show a growth of 0.3% for the Euro Zone and 0.5% for the EU-27: the growth is respectively 2.5% and 2.8% if compared with the same period of last year. New member states register the best performances: in order Latvia (+2.7%), Slovakia (+2.4%) and Lithuania (+2.1%). The GDP of four countries, on the other hand, is in the red: Ireland (-1.4%), Greece (-0.9%), Denmark (-0.4%) and Malta (-0.4%). While Europe continues to sell more than it buys on foreign markets (+0.7% for exports compared with +0.4% for imports), it is investments that are acting as a brake on the overall growth of GDP: -0.2% in the Euro Zone and -0.1% throughout the whole EU territory. As regards the main economic competitors of the European Union, the USA presented an increase of 0.9% in GDP in the second quarter of 2007, while Japan has regressed by 0.3% after over a year of continuous recovery.
